The next words he heard were "GET.OUT.NOW" with my face about three inches from his. It was all I could do not to punch him. Strike 1: Disliking and being nasty to cats. Strike 2: Blatantly lying to me about his feelings about cats.

I'd had a much nastier incident concerning roommates and cats before this, so I thought I was being careful by doing some phone screening. So much for that idea.

I just love that, the dislike of cats ranks higher than the lying. Wish I coulda been your roomie

The next words he heard were "GET.OUT.NOW" with my face about three inches from his. It was all I could do not to punch him. Strike 1: Disliking and being nasty to cats. Strike 2: Blatantly lying to me about his feelings about cats.

I'd had a much nastier incident concerning roommates and cats before this, so I thought I was being careful by doing some phone screening. So much for that idea.

I just love that, the dislike of cats ranks higher than the lying. Wish I coulda been your roomie

Dislike of cats is a deal-breaker for me as far as someone being anything more than an acquaintance. This guy, however, was actively nasty and abusive. That earns someone the cut direct.

I wound up with a roommate who had absolutely no experience with cats but really liked mine. Her cat-noobness resulted in some hilarious moments, like the time Morgan started purring and she fled to the other side of the room, thinking he was growling at her. And the time she found a baggie full of catnip and thought it was another substance that looks somewhat similar.

My cousin is a healthy, strapping young man of 20, who has grown up with dogs. At Christmas time this year, we were all over at my parent's house, and I had my 10 week old puppy with me. I told everyone that when she mouthed, we were yelping and ignoring her, to end the behavior, and if anyone wasn't comfortable with the young puppy to let me know, so I could keep her away from them. She's always been fairly aloof, so she wasn't seeking these new strangers out, anyway.

I was sitting on the floor, talking to everyone, playing tug with Elsie, the puppy, and, like most young puppies, she got overly excited and grabbed my thumb instead of the rope. I yipped (not terribly loudly--the people on the sofa didn't even look over at me), took the toy, and turned away. My cousin took it upon himself to reach over to hit her in the face, saying, "Sometimes you just have to smack a dog to let it know not to bite." I have fairly good reflexes, and was able to block his hand. I picked her up, said, "Do not touch her," and walked into the other room to calm down.

My cousin took it upon himself to reach over to hit her in the face, saying, "Sometimes you just have to smack a dog to let it know not to bite." I have fairly good reflexes, and was able to block his hand. I picked her up, said, "Do not touch her," and walked into the other room to calm down.

Last Christmas I was stepping into the bathroom to freshen up as people made their way to the dinner table....the door wasn't locked and I caught my DIL's younger brother rifling through my medicine cabinet. Sadly for him I already knew he's an addict who steals so I had already removed anything other than asprin, laxatives, and Imodeum and hidden them along with my purse, DH's wallet and my family's purses. I must say looking back at it it was almost worth the annoyance to see the terror on this rather big guys face when all 5'2" of me gave him a quiet but rather intense dressing down about how one behaves at my house. And as we came to an understanding DH came in and asked "Need any help dear?" Oh no Darling I have it all under control. DIL's YB is now terrified of me and knows not to come on our property. Oh boy does he know.....

Last Christmas I was stepping into the bathroom to freshen up as people made their way to the dinner table....the door wasn't locked and I caught my DIL's younger brother rifling through my medicine cabinet. Sadly for him I already knew he's an addict who steals so I had already removed anything other than asprin, laxatives, and Imodeum and hidden them along with my purse, DH's wallet and my family's purses. I must say looking back at it it was almost worth the annoyance to see the terror on this rather big guys face when all 5'2" of me gave him a quiet but rather intense dressing down about how one behaves at my house. And as we came to an understanding DH came in and asked "Need any help dear?" Oh no Darling I have it all under control. DIL's YB is now terrified of me and knows not to come on our property. Oh boy does he know....

I feel for you. We have to do the same thing for certain family members. Aside from the items you listed, we also (and especially) hide jewelry, guns and ammo.

My family, when I was about 15-16, hosted an exchange student at our house for a couple of weeks. Now, normally, this program would have worked as a direct exchange (in this case, I would have gone to her country for a couple of weeks with other kids from my school and stayed with her family, and then she and her schoolmates would come here), but her "exchange partner" declined to participate in this side of the program. Instead of seeing that for the warning it was, I got really excited about hosting this virtual stranger! Kudos to my parents for being gracious enough to extend the invitation, but cautious enough to keep a close eye on things.

The student, who I will call C here, was an... interesting girl. Interesting not because of her different culture or anything... but she was an SS in her own right. Her schoolmates really wouldn't have anything to do with her, and I quickly realized why.

-she would not eat. No, strike that, she would not eat ANYTHING that she had not brought with her from her country. After a few days this dwindled down to random chocolate. No, she would also not offer anything to anyone else. She refused my parent's cooking by literally saying, "that is absolutely disgusting". My parents are nice, but they are not pushovers. One alternative or sidedish was offered each meal, then she was on her own.

-one part of the program was to go to a local amusement park for the day. She insisted on riding one rollercoaster many many times. Well, with the above diet, you can imagine how that went. She threw up all over the platform, and then wanted to ride again. The staff made her leave, and we sat together outside of the ride as she flat out refused to do anything else.

-She loved to take pictures of our dogs. Fair enough, they're awfully cute. But god help you if my family or I happened to be anywhere near the picture. She would actually tell us to get out of the way, and in a very blunt manner - this happened every time.

-We got a new car while she was here. New to us, at least. When we all went out to see it, she sniffed, put her nose up (I had no idea people actually did this as a serious gesture of disdain!) and said something like, "the only good cars are Audis."

-She went to visit family members while staying with us, which was not only fine, but welcome at this point. Her family members lived about 2 hours by train away from us, and the deal was that she would leave on Friday, and return on Monday. She came back on Saturday afternoon with no explanation. My mom thought that was kind of funny, but pretty indicative of her personality.

-apparently, she treated me really poorly throughout the trip, but I must have blocked this from my memory. My mom, years late, would shake with anger when talking about how she would insult and put me down IN FRONT OF MY FAMILY. Who does that?

For the entire time she was with us, she barely spoke, and was just miserable to be around. From what I understood from the other students, that was pretty normal for her. Why would someone put themselves into that kind of program if they have decided not to enjoy it?

My mom ended up driving her to the airport to go home, and she actually asked about coming back to visit. From reading between the lines, I believe that my mom outlined to her exactly why that would not be possible. I think my mom also might have called her parents and read them the riot act about her behaviour.

My family, when I was about 15-16, hosted an exchange student at our house for a couple of weeks. Now, normally, this program would have worked as a direct exchange (in this case, I would have gone to her country for a couple of weeks with other kids from my school and stayed with her family, and then she and her schoolmates would come here), but her "exchange partner" declined to participate in this side of the program. Instead of seeing that for the warning it was, I got really excited about hosting this virtual stranger! Kudos to my parents for being gracious enough to extend the invitation, but cautious enough to keep a close eye on things.

The student, who I will call C here, was an... interesting girl. Interesting not because of her different culture or anything... but she was an SS in her own right. Her schoolmates really wouldn't have anything to do with her, and I quickly realized why.

-she would not eat. No, strike that, she would not eat ANYTHING that she had not brought with her from her country. After a few days this dwindled down to random chocolate. No, she would also not offer anything to anyone else. She refused my parent's cooking by literally saying, "that is absolutely disgusting". My parents are nice, but they are not pushovers. One alternative or sidedish was offered each meal, then she was on her own.

-one part of the program was to go to a local amusement park for the day. She insisted on riding one rollercoaster many many times. Well, with the above diet, you can imagine how that went. She threw up all over the platform, and then wanted to ride again. The staff made her leave, and we sat together outside of the ride as she flat out refused to do anything else.

-She loved to take pictures of our dogs. Fair enough, they're awfully cute. But god help you if my family or I happened to be anywhere near the picture. She would actually tell us to get out of the way, and in a very blunt manner - this happened every time.

-We got a new car while she was here. New to us, at least. When we all went out to see it, she sniffed, put her nose up (I had no idea people actually did this as a serious gesture of disdain!) and said something like, "the only good cars are Audis."

-She went to visit family members while staying with us, which was not only fine, but welcome at this point. Her family members lived about 2 hours by train away from us, and the deal was that she would leave on Friday, and return on Monday. She came back on Saturday afternoon with no explanation. My mom thought that was kind of funny, but pretty indicative of her personality.

-apparently, she treated me really poorly throughout the trip, but I must have blocked this from my memory. My mom, years late, would shake with anger when talking about how she would insult and put me down IN FRONT OF MY FAMILY. Who does that?

For the entire time she was with us, she barely spoke, and was just miserable to be around. From what I understood from the other students, that was pretty normal for her. Why would someone put themselves into that kind of program if they have decided not to enjoy it?

My mom ended up driving her to the airport to go home, and she actually asked about coming back to visit. From reading between the lines, I believe that my mom outlined to her exactly why that would not be possible. I think my mom also might have called her parents and read them the riot act about her behaviour.

Thanks for reviving this thread, I hadn't seen it. Many funny stories. I wish your exchange student story was a one off. But my sister's family hosted many students. Most were a pleasure but there were a couple of real gems. The worst was the 17 yr old boy they had for 7 months. He refused to eat any thing but take out pizza or McD, criticized the local school, everything associated with the US, was very racist about people of Mexican decent and seemed very irritated and surprised that we have so many in Texas. My other sister married while he was here and he loudly criticized everything to do with the wedding and was given the option of participating or not in the photos and when he did he chose to make faces at the camera like a 2 yr old. His parents came to visit toward the end of his stay and my sister was completely taken back about how gracious they were. We think they put him in the program just to get a break from him because he acted horribly to his parents during the visit too.

I think that sometimes foreign exchange students pick the member of the host family that's closest to them in age and situation so they can alienate that person and endear themselves to the parents, securing their place.

My friend Crystal's family hosted an exchange student when we were in high school. She was really excited about it until a few weeks after the girl arrived. Helene seemed perfectly nice in the few days she ate lunch with Crystal's group of friends before finding her own group. But Crystal insisted that Helene was sabatoging her at home and trying to turn Crystal's parents against her. She said Helene would repeat things Crystal said out of context, making Crystal seem spoiled or dishonest or "misinterpreting" something Crystal had said or done in a way that got Crystal in trouble.

Example: Crystal's parents made it clear to Helene that smoking was a no-no in their house. Two weeks into her stay, they find Helene smoking on the back porch. She said, "Oh, I found these in Crystal's room, so I thought maybe the rules had changed." (Not true, Crystal didn't smoke but Helene was so convincing that Crystal's parents lectured her for hours and grounded her.)

We laughed it off, telling her she'd seen too many sitcoms. But then we went to a barbecue over at Crystal's house and it was OBVIOUS that's what Helene was trying to do. I'd never seen so much tension between Crystal and her parents, who usually got a long really well. and Helene was treated like a much-beloved golden child in comparison. It took weeks after Helene went back home for things to go back to normal between Crystal and her parents.

My family, when I was about 15-16, hosted an exchange student at our house for a couple of weeks. Now, normally, this program would have worked as a direct exchange (in this case, I would have gone to her country for a couple of weeks with other kids from my school and stayed with her family, and then she and her schoolmates would come here), but her "exchange partner" declined to participate in this side of the program. Instead of seeing that for the warning it was, I got really excited about hosting this virtual stranger! Kudos to my parents for being gracious enough to extend the invitation, but cautious enough to keep a close eye on things.

The student, who I will call C here, was an... interesting girl. Interesting not because of her different culture or anything... but she was an SS in her own right. Her schoolmates really wouldn't have anything to do with her, and I quickly realized why.

-she would not eat. No, strike that, she would not eat ANYTHING that she had not brought with her from her country. After a few days this dwindled down to random chocolate. No, she would also not offer anything to anyone else. She refused my parent's cooking by literally saying, "that is absolutely disgusting". My parents are nice, but they are not pushovers. One alternative or sidedish was offered each meal, then she was on her own.

-one part of the program was to go to a local amusement park for the day. She insisted on riding one rollercoaster many many times. Well, with the above diet, you can imagine how that went. She threw up all over the platform, and then wanted to ride again. The staff made her leave, and we sat together outside of the ride as she flat out refused to do anything else.

-She loved to take pictures of our dogs. Fair enough, they're awfully cute. But god help you if my family or I happened to be anywhere near the picture. She would actually tell us to get out of the way, and in a very blunt manner - this happened every time.

-We got a new car while she was here. New to us, at least. When we all went out to see it, she sniffed, put her nose up (I had no idea people actually did this as a serious gesture of disdain!) and said something like, "the only good cars are Audis."

-She went to visit family members while staying with us, which was not only fine, but welcome at this point. Her family members lived about 2 hours by train away from us, and the deal was that she would leave on Friday, and return on Monday. She came back on Saturday afternoon with no explanation. My mom thought that was kind of funny, but pretty indicative of her personality.

-apparently, she treated me really poorly throughout the trip, but I must have blocked this from my memory. My mom, years late, would shake with anger when talking about how she would insult and put me down IN FRONT OF MY FAMILY. Who does that?

For the entire time she was with us, she barely spoke, and was just miserable to be around. From what I understood from the other students, that was pretty normal for her. Why would someone put themselves into that kind of program if they have decided not to enjoy it?

My mom ended up driving her to the airport to go home, and she actually asked about coming back to visit. From reading between the lines, I believe that my mom outlined to her exactly why that would not be possible. I think my mom also might have called her parents and read them the riot act about her behaviour.

I posted about this person just after Christmas but she came up in conversation with Eunice yesterday afternoon.

At Eunice's smallish Christmas party one female guest put her fork in every serving dish. Since I have a problem with tact when I get angry I took Eunice aside to tell her (She's better at this stuff than I usually am). She took this guest aside and told her this was unacceptable. The response was "I really don't get out much; I had no idea I was doing anything wrong."

Eunice was so shocked at this level of cluelessness she said "Let's put it this way: For all practical purposes you were spitting into the food. Every time you put your used fork into a serving dish you were spitting into the food. That is not acceptable."

About an hour later I noticed that this guest had departed. Two days later she was at another person's home where she made some comment that offended Steve, Eunice's husband. He later told me that she won't be on their guest list for anything.

Guess what happens two weeks from today? The St. Patrick's Day party. Eunice has avoided at least three calls from this woman (Caller ID is a very good friend) and has no idea what she is going to say if she encounters her unexpectedly.

My parents were involved in hosting adult exchange students or professionals from other countries, so they were a bit older than a teenager. Most were great, or just had a few foibles explained by a cultural difference or not knowing the cost of something (the German guy who was lovely, but who also made calls to his Israeli girlfriend in the middle of the afternoon). My parents were gracious and let things like that go.

But there was one man from a country in which there are very few rich, and a whole lot of poorer people who mostly work for said rich. He, of course, was one of the rich and we were there to serve him! If we were in a restaurant, he would raise his hand and snap his fingers to get the server's attention. He left his things around the house, expecting my mother (or me) to pick them up. He became angry when I beat him at dominoes. He took my parents' car to the car wash, barked orders at the attendants, and ran it through the machine-with the windows rolled partly down.